When scientists talk about the cryosphere, they mean the places on Earth where water is in its solid form, frozen into ice or snow. Read more ...

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229 viewsThis is all you see wherever you look on the interior of the Greenland ice sheet. Flat and boring as Kansas!
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

229 viewsOur first stop on the southern traverse at the NASA-SE station. Here we are in the snow accumulation region ("dry snow zone") of Greenland where it rarely experiences any melt. Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

221 viewsMe on a ski-doo before my first ski-doo trip.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

220 viewsWe all went on a short helicopter ride from Swiss Camp down to the coast near Jakobshavn glacier. Jay Zwally in foreground. Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

220 viewsA close-up shot from the helicopter of another huge melt lake.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

220 viewsLess cargo on this flight. View from the inside of the plane.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

219 viewsAn even closer close-up of the wall of the snow pit, showing a couple of layers in the snow. These particular kinds of layers form when big snow storms occur with strong winds that cause the snow to compact at what was then the surface. Other layers may be caused by melting and refreezing of snow. Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

214 viewsA close-up of my tent. Inside my tent were bags with all of my gear and a small cot with two sleeping bags.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

213 viewsAnother couple of cargo lines, with Nic in the photo. At the left is the cargo line of our food boxes.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

212 viewsThe sauna room. A few nights during the expedition we would turn on this sauna and heat up this small hallway room to 50° C (122° F), which felt good after a full day out in the cold!

212 viewsOur pilots for the southern traverse: Jonas and Tomas. Jonas (left) is from Iceland and a legendary pilot in Greenland. Koni has known him for 25 years, back when Jonas was somewhat of a daredevil pilot from the stories Koni told us. Tomas (right) is from Denmark. Both spoke English fairly well.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.

211 viewsWe land at Swiss Camp and line up all our cargo: can you believe that all fit in the plane?? The yellow boxes are filled with food. The silver boxes are filled with instruments, tools, and wires. The bags are our personal gear.
Photo by John Maurer, CIRES/NSIDC, University of Colorado.